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It is time to look at another Presidential candidate. This time the featured candidate is Senator John McCain. Most people are certainly aware by now of John McCain’s history as a naval aviator. Two well known events during his naval career both involved cheating death from a catastrophic explosion and fire aboard the USS Forrestal and more that six years as a POW in Viet Nam. He deserves our utmost respect and appreciation for service to country. And nothing will be stated or suggested to the contrary on this blog. This should apply to all who have served their country well.

The respect for Senator John McCain does not preclude criticism of an unflattering nature when it comes to politics. The first stop to view John McCain the Presidential candidate was suggested by recent reports of a stalled or poorly managed campaign. The natural choice was entering his name in a search engine to check SEO. Had we not known that John McCain was a candidate, it would have been easy to miss any relevant search engine results. With the exception of a pleading by a fan site to visit johnmccain.com, there was only a myspace pointer to johnmccain. Looks like reinvigorating and revitalizing the campaign is not going so well.

Even after visiting JohnMcCain.com, there is little enthusiasm visible on the front page. Nothing stands out to indicate his candidacy or in any way informs the visitor he is seeking the highest office in the land. Just to help out his campaign a little, this next sentence is offered. Hey, John McCain’s campaign committee, tell your boss a visitor to the website suggests he look like a candidate if he expects to win any elections. The words president, candidate and election do not appear on the front page. The only reference to the word vote is in the link entitled ‘register to vote’. No points for McCain on his campaign website.

The next natural choice was to view the ‘issues’ category from a website menu. Fiscal discipline, pork barrel spending, transparency, tough choices, leadership, lower taxes and opportunity simply don’t work when talking government spending, taxes and the economy. Since you can’t ensure any of that happening it is meaningless to say you will work to ensure it. That just means no one in your campaign can come up with anything better or you are killing all their ideas and making them look stupid.

The next issue offered is on Iraq. Sorry John, your first three talking points on Iraq are old news. Bush already started the more boots on the ground strategy about 4 years too late. The counter insurgency strategy was the reason given for Patraeus being brought to the conflict. And strengthening the Iraqi armed forces and police is old news as well. You could have just said I agree with what is happening.

With the possible exception of retaining senior officers, the next few points on Iraq have been tried one way or another and therefore the yes, I agree, statement would have been sufficient and no less effective. Your last two points however, essentially echo the sentiment of those who support the troops and oppose the surrender attitude demonstrated by the current Democratic party leadership and weak kneed members of the minority party. On this single talking point of your Iraq issue statement, the folks at this blog respectfully concur. Points for McCain’s support of the troops and refusal to accept anything less than victory.

The remainder of Senator McCain’s issue list is rather repetitive although the subjects are quite noble in sentiment and objective. A strong military, the need for victory in Iraq, being stewards of the environment, 2nd amendment rights, a pro-life stance and national security are fundamental causes. But alas, as most campaigns do, this says much and tells one little beyond those items which will not pose much controversy. For those issues have already drawn the lines and the danger of supporting either side is minimal at least from a party perspective.

The bottom line is Senator John McCain is probably a good man. He certainly has a resume’ with some extraordinary components. His political life is almost mysterious. A collection of contradictory actions mixed within a relatively steady pursuit of admirable objectives. It is those puzzling responses to obstacles as in his last pursuit of his party’s nomination that makes it difficult to envision John McCain as President of the United States.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 11:55 am and is filed under Bush, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election, Biden, McCain, GOP, Gore, Tancredo, Clinton, thompson, United States, obama, hillary, romney, Edwards, Gingrich. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.